


A Pocket Full of Rye (Biscuits)

by shetlandowl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sex Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-14 00:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20591939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetlandowl/pseuds/shetlandowl
Summary: Tony's just out for his morning jog on a cozy autumn day. What could possibly go wrong?





	A Pocket Full of Rye (Biscuits)

**Author's Note:**

> A meet-cute inspired by this [very good girl](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/NINTCHDBPICT000520411187-e1568044686890.jpg?w=620)!

Even in his sleep Tony heard that familiar click-clack across the hardwood floors. Confident and purposeful, she gained on him faster than he could think of an escape. 

There was no escape, not from her. Never from her. He loved her too much. How could he not? She was the perfect lady, devoted and graceful, and kinder than the day was long. On lazy mornings days like this, she woke him up by squeezing in close to his side of the bed and wiggling with all her might, waiting until Tony cracked his eyes open. 

Then, she pounced. 

“I’m—I’m up, stop—!” he complained through spluttered laughter, doing his best to protect himself from her spike of energy as she climbed all over him, licking his ears and trying to get at his mouth with enviable enthusiasm. It was the wettest, most effective wake-up, and even now - forty minutes before dawn and closer to Christmas than Easter - Tony wouldn’t change it for the world. 

“Shh, down, girl—enough,” he managed when he finally pushed her away. She rolled off, obedient but grudgingly so, and lay as close to his side as she could, begging for more pets and love with her whole body. Her butt shook with the force of her wagging tail and her toe-beans flexed into the bedding in her excitement, but she was determined to lay still on the bed like a good, patient dog. 

“Such a good girl,” Tony murmured in praise once she was (relatively) calm, punctuating it with a kiss between her eyes. “Fine. Whatever: you win, Missy. No surprise there. Go get your ball, I’ll put on pants or, or …something. It’s supposed to be cold, right?”

With a big yawn and barely aware of what he was saying, Tony stumbled to his feet and blindly made his way to his closet. The routine was old and familiar, and half asleep, Tony pulled on his sweats and shuffled to the door without tripping or staggering into furniture. 

Shoes on and leash in hand, he pulled the door open for his excitable girl. She tap-danced down the stairs and leapt the final step to the pavement, where she stopped to wait for Tony to lock up and trundle down after her. 

“Boy, that’s brisk—did you press the button? No? God, what good are you, girl?” he chided her playfully as they jaywalked like all self-respecting New Yorkers. His rotten little cotton-ball of perfection happily pranced ahead of him, so proud to lead the way with her toy lifted high. She was so pleased with herself, greeting the morning regulars like old friends she’d known since her days as a waddling pup bouncing along the trail chasing Tony’s shoe-laces. 

Her cheerful tail wagged farther ahead of him than usual, acting like she’d been in doggy-prison for years and only now been allowed to come see her friends. She wiggled up to the two or three other runners ahead of them, making sure they could see and envy her toy before doubling back for Tony. 

From a distance Tony watched the familiar faces smile at his excitable, angelic demonspawn, then turn back to give him judgmental side-eyes. He groaned inwardly and tried to pick up his pace. She focused better when Tony ran faster, but damnit, waking up was slow-going this time of year. The weather was cool and just a touch chilly, and the dim light of dawn cast through the trees just enough to make everything cozy. He didn’t want to run, he wanted to crawl back into bed!

With a little effort, every step became easier than the last. She usually fell in beside him once Tony found their normal pace, but today his pumpkin muskrat sped up to maintain her two-to-three foot advantage. Tony didn’t think much of it until he reached to pet her and she darted out of reach. 

“Someone’s excited,” Tony teased, picking up the pace a little to catch her for a good pat, but she kept speeding up to stay a yard or so ahead of him. 

Two odd-ball stunts were too suspicious to ignore. 

Tony slowed to a halt, clapping his hands for his weasley little troll. “Marple! Here girl,” he called, stern enough that she almost obeyed without thinking. But instead of coming to him she laid down on the trail, protecting her toy. 

“Marple! What are you doing? Is that—that’s not your ball,” he finally realized, walking to her while raking his mind for anything in the house that was turquoise blue. Her balls were purple and orange, and Tony always favored red and gold for himself, so what could she possibly have found—

Before he could grab her, Marple snatched up his favorite rimming butt plug and took off like a shot. 

Tony’s mortified heart stopped beating. _His butt plug._ It was a perfectly respectable Tuesday morning and his brightly colored, vibrating, top of the line _butt plug_ was on the run in Prospect Park. 

“BAD DOG!” he shouted, sprinting after her without any hope of catching her. “MARPLE! Marple! Get back here!”

Unfortunately, the only game Marple liked better than chase or fetch was keep-away. Even a decade of track didn’t hold a candle to a dog whose wishes had come true, and with a particularly elegant leap, she dove into the woods and took off. 

Cursing and praying by turns, Tony cut off the trail to follow her, doing his best to keep her in sight without tripping on rocks, running into trees, or stepping on some small, unsuspecting animal. 

Tree roots never crossed his mind. 

Tony went down in the middle of the woods with a shout and a crash. The impact knocked the wind from his lungs and his head spun from the knock of face-planting into the ground, but those were the least of his problems. His foot was stuck and twisted under him. Sharp, burning pain radiated from his ankle, overwhelming his awareness of anything else around him. Worse still, he was too far from the trail to call for help. 

Distantly, he heard Marple bark in distress. He called her name, but it was no more than a croak after having the wind punched out of him by gravity. Wherever he looked, his dog was nowhere to be found. Swallowing and clearing his throat in a rush, he finally managed a decent shout. 

“Marple! Here, girl!” 

She stopped barking, but Tony didn’t hear her coming to him. He was truly alone. 

Panic licked at his shaken thoughts, but Tony willed himself to stay absolutely still and give himself a chance to move past the shock of the fall and pull himself together. He didn’t dare move his leg yet, too worried he’d do so hastily and make a bad situation worse. A torn ligament or a broken bone was the last thing he needed. 

Slowly, his breathing calmed and his mind cleared. Carefully, without moving the rest of his body, Tony tried wiggling his foot. He couldn’t gain an inch any way he tried, the damn root held - but at least the worst of the pain was already subsiding. With a little luck, nothing was broken. 

Then from out of nowhere, he heard the familiar jangling of Marple’s tags. It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard, and by some miracle it was accompanied by light, nimble footsteps running towards him.

“Oh, shit—stop! Don’t move,” a man’s voice told him in a commanding voice Tony didn’t really appreciate (but obeyed instinctively). Whoever the man was he approached from behind, and before Tony could lift his head to turn and look a big, turquoise butt plug dropped to the ground in front of his nose. 

Marple was on him in an instant, whimpering and yipping in her relief and licking every inch of Tony’s face in overjoyed greeting. His poor girl had never seen him physically incapacitated and Tony tried to grab her, to reassure her that he was okay and to calm her down, but it was all tough to do while trying not to cry out every time the stranger turned or raised his foot. 

“Sorry, almost there,” the man promised in a firm tone, and Tony stilled without needing to be told twice. Instead, he held on to Marple where she curled around his head. His worried girl trembled under his hands, but she wasn’t leaving him, and through the staggering pain from his ankle, Tony had the wherewithal to wonder how he’d ever gotten so lucky. 

Then, almost like a miracle, the confining compression around his foot disappeared. 

“There, that’s it. Let’s sit you up, just go slow,” the man said more gently, easing Tony’s foot down and helping him roll onto his back so he could sit without putting any pressure on it. 

As he came up, the first thing Tony noticed were the man’s broad, muscular shoulders. Firm, beefy biceps flexed from the effort of helping to lift Tony into a seated position. Already the man was unfairly attractive, Tony didn’t need to look up and see that strong jawline and defined cheekbones and blue, observant eyes. Marple must have found him mid-jog; his Under Armour clung to the firm definition of his body and his skin was still damp and flushed from exertion. 

He felt his little devil wriggle affectionately against his arm, and Tony lifted his arm to allow her to squeeze in between his body and his arm for pats and lots of praise - but he also couldn’t stop staring at his hero. The man was too distracted by something on the right side of Tony’s face to notice anyway, so Tony indulged, convincing himself that he could blame it on his fall if the man accused him of ogling him when his only crime was being a good samaritan. 

A weight dropped into his lap. 

Tony didn’t have to look to know what it was. The way his day was going, he didn’t feel the need to look away from well-formed pecs (and the hard nipples that were so clearly visible through the sweaty shirt in this chilly weather) to know Marple had yet again tried to make a peace offering by returning the toy she’d stolen. 

That didn’t mean _he_ didn’t look. 

Tony sat ramrod straight. Was his life a joke? That had to be it: his life was a cosmic joke. Here he had a prime opportunity to fawn over the strong adonis whose confident, commanding voice left Tony weak in the knees, and instead he had to find a casual, non-psycho way to laugh off the fact that he’d left his house that morning with a dog and a butt plug. 

Time stood still as he cast around desperately for something to say, until he noticed his dog. His poor, sweet Marple looked miserable. Her head drooped in a guilty show of submission, her ears were pressed back against her head even as she blinked up at Tony with pleading eyes. If dogs could weep, there’d be tear tracks down her soft, ginger muzzle. 

“You’re alright, angel,” Tony cooed at her, rubbing her flank and pulling her close to kiss her brow. To hell with Mr. Perfect; impressing fleeting eye-candy wasn’t half as important as reassuring his little girl that she was loved and forgiven. “That’s my good girl, Marple, such a good girl.”

Affection soon replaced guilt, and Tony’s heart lifted when Marple’s ears perked up again. She turned shamelessly into the firm, indulging pats, then dropped and rolled to her back so she could throw her paws in the air for belly rubs. 

Next to them, Mr. Perfect was looking anywhere but at Tony or the butt plug. If anyone could telegraph actively trying to become invisible, it was this guy. 

“So, uh,” Tony started with a feigned nonchalance. He was just a regular guy sitting in the middle of the woods giving his dog belly rubs, no big deal. “What are the odds you’d believe that this isn’t what it looks like?”

“You mean, what are the odds I don’t recognize a butt plug?”

“...no,” Tony said after a beat of silence where his blood was too busy rushing to turn his face red to form any words. “Uh, what are the odds you, you know, that you’d believe that I don’t get my kicks from letting my dog chew on butt plugs and then let her parade them in public for all of Brooklyn to see?”

“Oh,” Mr. Perfect said in his surprise, then settled to give it serious thought. 

Tony blinked, watching him genuinely muse on the question. 

Didn’t the guy realize it was a sarcastic deflection? It wasn’t a serious question; Tony had to say _something_ to escape a deeply uncomfortable situation where a toy he frequently (and enthusiastically) played with was riddled with teeth indentations, covered in slobber and dirt, and right under Mr. Perfect’s nose. 

“Sixty-forty,” Mr. Perfect announced while Tony was still wrestling with whether this whole fucked up scenario was evidence that there was a god or the opposite. 

He stared at Mr. Perfect and his perfectly pleasant smile. Not a taunting smile or a malicious smile, but a kind smile behind which peals of laughter lurked. 

“Sorry, what?”

“Sixty-forty,” Mr. Perfect repeated, grinning now. “She looks like more of a ball-loving dog to me.”

Tony choked on air. Before he knew it, laughter spluttered out of him in intermittent bursts of embarrassed giggling and genuine snickering. Marple sprung back up and wagged and tap-danced beside him, sharing in his happiness - 

But that was expected. What wasn’t expected was Mr. Perfect, laughing softly under his breath. 

“Come on, it’s getting cold,” he said, offering Tony his hand. “Let’s get you up.”

Tony was still giggling to himself when he took Mr. Perfect’s offered hand and slowly, careful not to put any weight on his right foot, pushed himself up. Or, more accurately, assisted Mr. Perfect in lifting him back to his feet. 

The miserable butt plug fell to the ground. Marple dutifully picked it up, and without acknowledging it, Mr. Perfect helped Tony balance so he could take it and stuff it into his pocket where no-one else had to see it again. 

“I can’t thank you enough,” Tony confessed as they started moving. Marple seemed determined about their direction, running ahead a short distance then coming back to check on them before repeating the process. They followed without questioning it, because the last thing Tony needed to do was figure out where he was in relation to his house. 

“You should thank your dog,” Mr. Perfect said with another breath-taking smile. “She found me on the trail and herded me back to you.”

“It’s what I get for laughing at Timmy all these years,” Tony grumbled to himself, and Mr. Perfect laughed. He laughed so unexpectedly and so freely that Tony basked in the sound, soaking it up like sunshine on a cloudy day.

With Mr. Perfect effortlessly bracing his weight and Marple leading the way, they made steady, if lumbering, progress. Soon they reached the trail, and Marple confidently directed them to the left. 

“Do you live nearby, or should I call a Lyft?” Mr. Perfect asked, “or an ambulance?”

“I’m not far,” Tony promised, and sure enough, they were around the corner right in time. “That’s me,” he explained, pointing out his brownstone. “Across the street and up the stairs.”

But instead of smiling again or relaxing at their very near destination, Tony felt Mr. Perfect body grow stiff against his side. 

“...you have your keys, right?”

“Zipped pockets,” Tony said quickly, digging his keys out to comfort his rescuer. The strong, firm body against him relaxed immediately. 

“You hold on to those.”

Tony got no other warning before Mr. Perfect bent to scoop up his legs and lift him in a bridal carry. By the time Tony got over the surprise and thought about demanding to be put down they were already across the street. They were on his stoop in seconds rather than minutes, and what could a man say about that besides thank you? 

The man let Tony balance against his arm while unlocking his door, and it took him a minute to realize Mr. Perfect was patting Marple with his free hand. He shrugged inwardly; at least one of them enjoyed Mr. Perfect’s love today.

“That was… unexpected, but effective,” Tony managed after clearing his throat. He was a master of swallowing things, including his pride. “You saved my ass today; I could have ended up as a filler episode for Law and Order. How can I thank you?”

His hero grinned, giving Marple a last scritch behind her ears before straightening. “How about a coffee?”

Tony only hesitated for a beat. “Now?”

“Or another time,” Mr. Perfect said with an easy smile. “Marple is welcome, too.”

“Now is good,” Tony rushed to say before _‘Could you be any more perfect?’_ slipped out. “Come in—Marple, go in,” he told her so she wouldn’t run up behind him and trip him, but before he had to negotiate the minor step of his doorway, Mr. Perfect was there again, ducking under his arm to support Tony’s careful hop-steps.

“This feels like something I should’ve said before you ever saw my butt plug,” Tony said wryly as they made quick work to the nearest chairs at his small dining table. “But, Hi, I’m Tony.”

Mr. Perfect laughed, a warm, deep chuckle that left Tony’s side tingling where their bodies pressed together. Until they reached the dining room, of course, and Mr. Perfect helped Tony into a chair and cut him off from the incredible strength, heat, and comfort of his body. 

“I’m Steve,” Mr. Perfect said with another dazzling grin. “It’s nice to meet you.”


End file.
